his is a follow-up to the post below on using your mobile phone when you're lost. It's a new technology from GeoVector:
“Here's how it works: A cellular carrier uses global-positioning-system technology to identify a mobile phone's location. The phone contains a tiny electronic compass sensor from GeoVector that determines the direction it is pointing in.
The carrier then takes all of that information and relays it to a GeoVector search engine. GeoVector matches the directional data with the locations of restaurants, hotels, real estate or other places of interest in databases produced by companies such as Cybermaps Japan and Microsoft MapPoint.
The technology will let you point your cell phone at a building and have it tell you, for instance, that there's a hairdressing salon on the third floor. The salon might list its phone number, which you can then click on and make an appointment. The salon might even send an ad to your phone giving you a discount. Or if you're touring San Francisco and are unsure of which bridge spans out to Treasure Island, GeoVector will tell you it's the Bay Bridge. [...]
Users of remote or device deployed information and transaction services are increasing in number every day. As this number of new users increases, the average level of expertise drops. The new user is less likely to have effective behaviors or habits for searching, sorting or interacting with these services, and the services themselves are equally likely to be new and evolving as they settle into mature markets and audiences.
As service delivery moves from the desktop to handheld or personal devices, new models of interaction and new methods of support will be developed for these services, to supplement and then replace familiar tools that rely on desktop computing power, peripherals or expansive screen real estate. Building on the powerful metaphor familiar from everyday computing, GeoVector brings pointing to the device and takes the real world as its desktop to power compelling applications.”
And if you're in the mood for more, but different, Geo, check out Howard Rheingold on Geoweb and Deep Place.
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